Null Physics anyone?

[BFM]

Because that's really wrong. All photons are relativistic, and none have mass - photons are exactly massless.

Tear apart my Background. OK. Rest photons have no mass. As educated person you should know that there's a difference between invariant mass and relative mass. PHOTONS HAVE A RELATIVISTIC MASS

 

[DeiRenDopa]

Tear apart my Background. OK. Rest photons have no mass. As educated person you should know that there's a difference between invariant mass and relative mass. PHOTONS HAVE A RELATIVISTIC MASS

(bold added)

They do?

Sez who?

And independent of who sez, what does Mr Null Physics say (wrt photons, relativity, and mass)?

And independent of what Mr Witt says, how do you - BFM - know that photons have a relativistic mass? (emphasis on how).

 

[ben m]

Tear apart my Background. OK. Rest photons have no mass. As educated person you should know that there's a difference between invariant mass and relative mass. PHOTONS HAVE A RELATIVISTIC MASS

Listen, BFM, this is just terminology confusion. It's something that's taught very badly in the schools and the popular literature. "Relativistic mass" was always a useless and confusing way to explain Special Relativity; physicists never, ever use it. When we talk about mass we're only talking about rest mass. If we want to talk about "total energy" (rest mass + kinetic) we just say "energy"---what's the point of dividing the total energy by c^2 and giving it mass units? None, unless you're a journalist trying to explain spacetime to a newspaper audience circa 1945.

Not a big deal, but when you say "photons have mass" we all hear you saying "photons have rest mass".

 

[BFM]

I don't want to measure the 285 yards, either, because golf is dumb. Let's put 285 and 0 into one set, and all the other reals into another. Null Physics surely follows apace.

BFM, now that we've discarded (and pureed and composted) your claim to have a "good background in math and science", let me introduce you to the concept of Cartesian coordinates. In science, we measure things with respect to coordinate systems. There are many different coordinate systems, all of which allow you to do the exact same measurements/kinematics/etc.. There are some coordinate systems that have special behavior at the origin. Others have special behavior somewhere else. None of them tell you what is or is not measurable or worth measuring; indeed, none of them should tell you that anything is unmeasurable unless you're being willfully ignorant.

Let's ignore coordinate space, and what you might think of my background for the moment. You are on the wrong side of an argument here. Lets try a apples and oranges. I have a crate full of apples and I ask you how many oranges I have in the crate? It is an irrational question who's answer is not 0 its undefined. Look at the ratio of apples/oranges. Whats the slope of that line? I will kindly take the next page or two or three to set up all of the facts and equations of my current point. Do you care that I just made your zero undefined? Because its making my point.

To put it in terms of tabletops. The set off all wood table tops has the properties of being non conductive. The set of all conducting wood table tops has zero members. If I didn't know that tabletops weren't conducting, and wanted to answer this question, the resultant equation would end up with a divisor of zero and UNDEFINED SLOPE. What does this have to do with measuring voltage?? or *earlier* what is the temperature difference between the earth and the sun? these questions both arise when using this math. You stated it difficult to add in this environment, but not impossible. I CAN show you the way how, if you need the refresher. But not tonight, or tomorrow, as I will be riding rollercoasters all day.

 

[Paulhoff]

Someone get these zero eleplants out of my room.

Paul

 

[Perpetual Student]

Let's ignore coordinate space, and what you might think of my background for the moment. You are on the wrong side of an argument here. Lets try a apples and oranges. I have a crate full of apples and I ask you how many oranges I have in the crate? It is an irrational question who's answer is not 0 its undefined.

Wrong! The answer is clearly zero oranges.

Look at the ratio of apples/oranges. Whats the slope of that line? I will kindly take the next page or two or three to set up all of the facts and equations of my current point. Do you care that I just made your zero undefined? Because its making my point.

Gibberish!

To put it in terms of tabletops. The set off all wood table tops has the properties of being non conductive. The set of all conducting wood table tops has zero members. If I didn't know that tabletops weren't conducting, and wanted to answer this question, the resultant equation would end up with a divisor of zero and UNDEFINED SLOPE. What does this have to do with measuring voltage?? or *earlier* what is the temperature difference between the earth and the sun? these questions both arise when using this math. You stated it difficult to add in this environment, but not impossible. I CAN show you the way how, if you need the refresher.

More gibberish! What does measuring zero voltage of an object have to do with defining the set of non-conducting objects? What resultant equation are you talking about?

But not tonight, or tomorrow, as I will be riding rollercoasters all day.

You seem to be already riding on one.

 

[sol invictus]

Tear apart my Background. OK.

Already done. Let's continue.

Rest photons have no mass.

There's no such thing as a "rest photon". That's, hmm, the second postulate of special relativity? Heard of that?

As educated person you should know that there's a difference between invariant mass and relative mass. PHOTONS HAVE A RELATIVISTIC MASS

Relativistic mass is a useless and outdated concept that is not used by any physicist I know of. But even if you wanted to use it, you're going to have a hard time defining it for photons - it's zero times infinity - unless you simply declare it's equal to the energy (in which case why bother with it at all?).

I have a crate full of apples and I ask you how many oranges I have in the crate? It is an irrational question who's answer is not 0 its undefined. Look at the ratio of apples/oranges. Whats the slope of that line? I will kindly take the next page or two or three to set up all of the facts and equations of my current point. Do you care that I just made your zero undefined? Because its making my point.

This is literally something young primary school children struggle with.

The slope of what line?? And even if there were one orange in this crate you find so confusing, I could ask you to look at the ratio N_apples/(N_oranges-1) !

Numbers are an abstraction. One apple is not the number "1" - it's a rather complex object, constantly exchanging molecules with its environment, much larger than some other apples, smaller than others, perhaps with a tiny bite out of it, perhaps with a worm in it, which we have chosen to label as "one apple". We can then use the rules of math to manipulate numbers, and those manipulations correspond to some extent to certain manipulations of the objects we've labeled - but never exactly (numbers don't get eaten, or rot, or grow into trees full of other numbers).

 

[ben m]

You know what this is? It's Nullity all over again.

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=70101

Someone finds a math quantity that doesn't behave like they want it to. They slap a new name on it and push it into a new category, so that everything else behaves "right" and they can wrap their brain around writing a few new rules for the one-element category. The "nullity" guy wanted to do it to infinity; this guy wants to do it to zero.

 

[BFM]

Already done. Let's continue.



There's no such thing as a "rest photon". That's, hmm, the second postulate of special relativity? Heard of that?



Relativistic mass is a useless and outdated concept that is not used by any physicist I know of. But even if you wanted to use it, you're going to have a hard time defining it for photons - it's zero times infinity - unless you simply declare it's equal to the energy (in which case why bother with it at all?).



This is literally something young primary school children struggle with.

The slope of what line?? And even if there were one orange in this crate you find so confusing, I could ask you to look at the ratio N_apples/(N_oranges-1) !

Numbers are an abstraction. One apple is not the number "1" - it's a rather complex object, constantly exchanging molecules with its environment, much larger than some other apples, smaller than others, perhaps with a tiny bite out of it, perhaps with a worm in it, which we have chosen to label as "one apple". We can then use the rules of math to manipulate numbers, and those manipulations correspond to some extent to certain manipulations of the objects we've labeled - but never exactly (numbers don't get eaten, or rot, or grow into trees full of other numbers).

Thanks for stating my point with rest photons. Looking through relativity, there is no intrinsic quantities that you or I can measure that is zero. Infinitesimally small yes, but Everything has energy. Period. R* is a valid point. Brush up on hyperreal numbers, because when you use them, my points
are valid.

 

[BFM]

You know what this is? It's Nullity all over again.

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=70101

Someone finds a math quantity that doesn't behave like they want it to. They slap a new name on it and push it into a new category, so that everything else behaves "right" and they can wrap their brain around writing a few new rules for the one-element category. The "nullity" guy wanted to do it to infinity; this guy wants to do it to zero.

What new names have I given to anything?? What Behavior is not to my liking? Have I stated some phenomenon That I want to magically change??

 

[sol invictus]

Thanks for stating my point with rest photons.

You mean correcting your egregious errors? You're welcome.

Looking through relativity, there is no intrinsic quantities that you or I can measure that is zero.

Utter nonsense. Momentum of a massive particle is a good example. One can always transform to a frame in which it is precisely, exactly zero.

Brush up on hyperreal numbers, because when you use them, my points
are valid.

You haven't made any points. If you think Witt's statements are consistent with hyperreals... well, go ahead and try to show us how. Good luck with that.

 

[ben m]

Thanks for stating my point with rest photons. Looking through relativity, there is no intrinsic quantities that you or I can measure that is zero.

There is no quantity that you or I can measure that is 1.5534, either. Infinitesimally different, but not exactly.

 

[ben m]

What new names have I given to anything?? What Behavior is not to my liking?

You have decided that there is Some Problem revolving around zero. You have decided that it's important to Isolate Zero From The Real Number Line so that (well, it's not clear exactly, but as far as I can tell) you have a domain where The Problem does not occur.

 

[Reality Check]

Hi BFM: You seem to have forgotton about this question that I asked you:

OK. Then for the purposes of temperature only (what is absolute temperature?) you can never actually measure a quantity of 0 Kelvin.
So what?
Are you saying that every equation in Terence Witt's book is a calculation of temperature?

In actual fact the questions are a bit inexact. They should be:
For the purposes of temperature as measured on the Kelvin temperature scale, a temperature of 0 Kelvin can never be measured.

For the purposes of temperature as measured on the Celcius temperature scale, a temperature of −273.15 Celcius can never be measured.

For the purposes of temperature as measured on the Fahrenheit temperature scale, a temperature of −459.67 Fahrenheit can never be measured.

I added the links in case you have bever heard of Celcuis or Fahrenheit (which seems likely !)

So the questions should be:

• Are the numbers −273.15 and −459.67 also to be excluded from your set of measurable temperatures as well as zero?
• If not why not?
• If yes then why can we not define a temperature scale where the lowest possible value is any value of measurable temperature and so end up with an empty set of measurable temperatures?
• What has this to do with Terence Witt's crackpot book?

I am looking forward to your mathmatical proof of Terence Witt's Null Axiom from the set of measurable temperatures measured in Kelvin (excluding 0 Kelvin).

 

[Blue Bayou]

I think the ultimate answer/ Grand Unified Theory of Everything can be succinctly summed up in the Galaxy Song by Monty Python, to wit:

Just remember that you're standing on a planet that's evolving
And revolving at nine hundred miles an hour,
That's orbiting at nineteen miles a second, so it's reckoned,
A sun that is the source of all our power.
The sun and you and me and all the stars that we can see
Are moving at a million miles a day
In an outer spiral arm, at forty thousand miles an hour,
Of the galaxy we call the 'Milky Way'.
Our galaxy itself contains a hundred billion stars.
It's a hundred thousand light years side to side.
It bulges in the middle, sixteen thousand light years thick,
But out by us, it's just three thousand light years wide.
We're thirty thousand light years from galactic central point.
We go 'round every two hundred million years,
And our galaxy is only one of millions of billions
In this amazing and expanding universe.

The universe itself keeps on expanding and expanding
In all of the directions it can whizz
As fast as it can go, at the speed of light, you know,
Twelve million miles a minute, and that's the fastest speed there is.
So remember, when you're feeling very small and insecure,
How amazingly unlikely is your birth,
And pray that there's intelligent life somewhere up in space,
'Cause there's bugger all down here on Earth.

 

[BFM]

electron haze

I haven't been here in a while, sorry for the delay, navigating ones assets through the financial crisis takes priority sometimes.

Now that being said here's a link which speaks right to the astrophysical construct Mr. Witt proposes in his book, the cycle of rebirth and galactic cooling via electron flow.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=fermi-haze

The empirical data shows that there is an excess of free electrons in the inner galaxy. This data cannot be explained by current processes.......

 

[Paulhoff]

The empirical data shows that there is an excess of free electrons in the inner galaxy. This data cannot be explained by current processes.......

Gee, something not explained as soon has it is found, and............

Paul

 

[ben m]

The empirical data shows that there is an excess of free electrons in the inner galaxy. This data cannot be explained by current processes.......

The current data cannot be explained by our very first guess at what current processes look like. That guess consists of (a) measure cosmic rays near Earth (b) use their energy/lifetime/species distributions to constrain a diffusion equation, and (c) guess that all of this looks exactly the same---same diffusion, same injection spectrum, etc.---at the Galactic center.

It surprises nobody, least of all the Fermi team (and even less the cosmic-ray community) that this didn't give an instantly perfect description of Galactic Center electrons.

Meanwhile, did Witt have a prediction about electrons? I thought he had a prediction about vaguely electron-like leprechauns which share none of the actual properties of electrons.

 

[BFM]

Dismissive of Ideas outside the Cannon

The current data cannot be explained by our very first guess at what current processes look like. That guess consists of (a) measure cosmic rays near Earth (b) use their energy/lifetime/species distributions to constrain a diffusion equation, and (c) guess that all of this looks exactly the same---same diffusion, same injection spectrum, etc.---at the Galactic center.

It surprises nobody, least of all the Fermi team (and even less the cosmic-ray community) that this didn't give an instantly perfect description of Galactic Center electrons.

Meanwhile, did Witt have a prediction about electrons? I thought he had a prediction about vaguely electron-like leprechauns which share none of the actual properties of electrons.

Happy post Holidays! I hope the ski season in the northern hemisphere treats you well (if your up here that is)

I think the title of my post tells you about what i think of statements like this, to which I would say, think for yourself.

So you didn't get it right, if you read the book/ gave his theory a good read you would know the answer to your last question

 

[Reality Check]

Dismissive of Ideas that are wrong

Happy post Holidays! I hope the ski season in the northern hemisphere treats you well (if your up here that is)

I think the title of my post tells you about what i think of statements like this, to which I would say, think for yourself.

So you didn't get it right, if you read the book/ gave his theory a good read you would know the answer to your last question

Both ben m and I read the book.
Both ben m and I participated in a forum run by Mr. Witt until Mr. Witt shut it down.

The fact that his ideas are wrong are easy to see. Read "Our Undiscovered Universe" by Terence Witt: Review 1; Review 2.

There is no prediction of excess electrons producing the observed microwaves in galaxy centers that I recall from the book. If there is then cite it.